Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bio-hybrid - Durham, United Kingdom - Durham University

Durham University

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Durham, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

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Description

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bio-Hybrid Robotics Design

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Job Number:

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Department of Computer Science

Grade 7:

£36,333
£43,155 per annum

Fixed Term - Full Time

Contract Duration: 36 months

Contracted Hours per Week: 35

Closing Date: 13-Jun-2023, 5:59:00 PM

Disclosure and Barring Service Requirement:
Not Applicable.

Durham University

Durham University is one of the world's top universities with strengths across the Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences.

We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.

The University sits in a beautiful historic city where it shares ownership of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Durham Cathedral, the greatest Romanesque building in Western Europe.

A collegiate University, Durham recruits outstanding students from across the world and offers an unmatched wider student experience.

Less than 3 hours north of London, and an hour and a half south of Edinburgh, County Durham is a region steeped in history and natural beauty.

The Durham Dales, including the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are home to breathtaking scenery and attractions. Durham offers an excellent choice of city, suburban and rural residential locations.

The University provides a range of benefits including pension and childcare benefits and the University's Relocation Manager can assist with potential schooling requirements.

The Department
Computer Science at Durham is a UK Top 10 Department (Complete University Guide We are committed to high-quality teaching and research, and the Department increased excellence in all research areas since the last research assessment exercise, moving six places up the ranking to the 20th position for REF 2021.

We are proud of our emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion and are working hard to make our department the no.1 University in the UK for women to study Computer Science.

The Role
As the world's most successful pollinators, bees play a huge part in every aspect of the ecosystem. Any decline in bee populations could pose a threat to global agriculture.

In this context, the EU-funded RoboRoyale project is developing and combining micro-robotic, biological and machine learning technologies into a system that can support the well-being of the honeybee queen, which is responsible for the reproductive success and efficiency of a colony.

Specifically, the micro-robotic system will operate around the queen.

For instance, this multi-robot system will replace the court bees that are in charge of feeding, grooming and cleaning of the queen as well as the facilitation of pheromone transfer from the queen to the workers.

The successful applicant will be responsible for micro-robotic design, hardware development, programming and developing multi-agent controllers, as well as implementation and testing the robotic system and its appropriate frameworks.

The second important task will be the low-level programming of micro-robots that work inside of honeybees' hives. You will focus on development of mechanisms and controllers for new types of complex bio-hybrid (insect-robot) entities.

We anticipate it will necessitate close working with our European partners.

You will not be constrained to using any available hardware and algorithm or approaches, and instead will have a creative approach to problem solving, exploring multiple potential techniques.

Ideas will be verified on software systems (e.g. Gazebo, MATLAB, etc) and with real world tests inside of honeybees' hive, and so, you will be willing to get involved in experimental work for real-world verification with biologists.

The project is an EU-H2020-FET funded collaboration between the University of Durham, the University of Graz in Austria, Czech Technical University in Prague, and Middle East Technical University in Turkey.

This role will involve close working with external partners.

You will be expected to visit all of these institutions in the course of your work, and will be based in the Department of Computer Science at Durham University.

Responsibilities:

To conduct individual and collaborative research projects under the direction of the Principal Investigator or Grantholder.
To use creativity to design a novel mechanisms for a microrobot system with a particular focus on social behaviour of honeybees.
To understand and convey material of a specialist or highly technical nature to the team or group of people through presentations and discussions that leads to the presentation of research papers in conferences and publications.
To prepare and deliver presentations on research outputs/activities to audiences which may include: research sponsors, academic and nonacademic audiences.
To publish high quality outputs, including papers for submission to peer reviewed